Intellectual Honesty from the WSJ Editorial Pages

I've never seen it. Here is the latest example:

The next time Democratic leaders lament the decline of American industry, please refer them to the current Congressional brawl over auto fuel-efficiency standards. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and most of their colleagues are siding with upscale environmental lobbies over American carmakers and workers. Call it their Drive-a-Toyota Act... The United Auto Workers warned that even a small mileage increase could cost more than 65,000 jobs.

Yes, that's the Journal, looking out for their old friends, the UAW. It continues:

Detroit has made its share of mistakes, but refusing to compete with smaller, more fuel-efficient cars isn't one of them. GM tried and failed with its Saturn project.

First off, I don't believe the Saturn project was designed to compete with smaller, more fuel-efficient cars primarily but was a way for GM to try to induce more people to buy their cars while cutting out their dealer network (remember "No haggle pricing"?). Second, Saturn didn't succeed because they made shitty cars. The Ion was widely criticized for it's huge gaps in the body panels, its cheap feel and lackluster performance. GM had a chance to revive the brand with a re-badged Opel mid-sized sedan, but it introduced it as a Cadillac instead. It sold barely at all as a Cadillac, but as a Cadillac it looks like what a Saturn should look like. Finally, Saturn was a risky bet anyway. GM was trying to, essentially, create a new car company and it failed.

Here's the rest of that paragraph:

And one reason for that failure is that the main competitive reality facing Detroit for a generation has been the burden of its worker pension and health care costs. The consensus is that those costs add about $1,500 per vehicle compared to Japanese or Korean competitors. The best way to recoup those costs is by making larger vehicles that earn more profit per sale than smaller cars do. Making trucks (protected by a 25% U.S. tariff) and SUVs was entirely rational, and failing to do so would have meant more financial trouble earlier.

Here the WSJ appears to be on the side of tariffs. Pro-union and pro-tariff, from the WSJ? Something's afoot.

Of course there are other ways to extract more value out of a vehicle other than to hide behind tariffs and make 'em bigger. You could, of course, provide a vehicle that would command a premium in the marketplace. By being out in front of R&D rather than continually riding yesterday's wave. You'd think the US auto makers would have learned something from the 70's.

And finally, there's this:

If Mr. Reid truly cared about cutting gas consumption, he and his party would increase the gas tax. But voters are already steamed about $3-a-gallon gas, and Mr. Reid's commitment to lower carbon consumption doesn't go as far as the personal sacrifice of losing Democratic Senate seats.

Imagine, just imagine the response from the right (including, I presume, the WSJ editorial pages) should Reid even think about raising gas taxes.

The WSJ is a great paper with a breathtaking bad editorial section. They should be embarrassed by columns like this one.